Here is a new artwork for my paleoart series. This my second work of Hesperornis art. I have again used the more duck-like coat of feathers that I made for the last one simply because I think it is more visually interesting.

Hesperornis was an aquatic bird that lived at the time of the dinosaurs. Unlike modern birds, it had teeth in addition to a beak. Its name means "western bird"

The usual disclaimer about my paleoart: When it comes to paleoart, the images I create favor 'art' more than 'paleo'. While I try my best to depict animals as accurately as possible, I'm make no claim that they 100% scientifically accurate. The same goes for the environment I depict them in. I am primarily interested in creating aesthetically pleasing images. Scientific accuracy comes second.

Note: this work uses purchased content. The bird was posed using Poser 6 and was then impported into Vue 9 where the rest of the scene was constructed. Final rendering was done in vue and took about 12 hours on an Intel I5 2.8GHz with 8 GB of RAM. Post production was done in GIMP.

Nothing so elaborate for the feathers for this particular. I just painted them in GIMP during the postwork phase using a bristle brush. When I do use 3d to render fur though, like I'm currently doing for a mammoth image, I use ZBrush's Fibermesh feature.

Your on such a render roll!! Yea! This is such a stunning piece! I like that you use a bit more fluffy texture on this little guy. He is very cool and unusual looking. You really achieved some amazing realism with this one. I especially like the camera angle you have here! Fantastic job!